Regarding Java Jazz '09 and 'Going Green'

Alright,

Yeah, it was early last month when the event was held, and this little essay is perhaps a bit way overdue, but I'll go on ahead anyways and start rambling about it.

I like the fact that they went through the pain of staging this thing called a website for their ticketing purposes, complete with a feature so commonly called 'payment by credit card'. In my mind's eye I was thinking printing ticket complete with barcodes a la singaporeair.com's online boarding pass printing feature. This little wishful thinking, however, got dashed by the simple fact that they didn't (immediately) send confirmation e-mail after ticket purchase. I actually had to wait for about 2 weeks until my confirmation e-mail was sent to my inbox. A friend even had to call 'em up for this to be done. Which completely nullified the whole purpose of creating a website.

So much for boarding pas... I mean ticket printing feature.

What they did provide was a page where you could type in your confirmation code (you got this after the ticket purchase, a good thing I noted it down before I closed down my browser) and print a semi-boardi-, I mean a ticket pick-up note. This, along with your ID, were to be used to pick up the tickets at the Sultan Hotel (previously known as the Hilton Hotel) a few days before the event.

Which was where I found myself queueing up in a line which length you could not possibly believe possible on one floor of a hotel building a few days after I printed the damn thing. It took me 2 and a half hours to finally get myself in front of the ticketing booth and another 15 minutes waiting for them to look for where-the-hell-are-his tickets. The upper torso of the well-behaved-under-the-circumstances-ticketing-officers were covered in t-shirts that greeted me with a slogan of "Go Green". At that point it was a miracle I did not puke.

First thing, the act of printing countless numbers of pick-up notes was already an act that goes against that slogan (I could literally hear trees falling in distant Sumatra and Kalimantan that day). Second thing, the act of THEM printing tickets...need I say more? (the sound of more trees falling...). What they could've done was to at least note down any ID numbers during the online ticket purchase. These ID numbers would serve as both confirmation AND ticket during the event. All the attendees need to do would be to present their ID (and for added security, the credit card used to buy the tickets) during the start of the event, and the admittance counter need only check whether the ID exists in their database. No need at all to print boardi-, I mean, pick-up notes or tickets. This would have also helped a lot of attendees who were coming from abroad who could not provide a legitimate authorization letter during ticket pick up (which was necessary if they asked someone else to pick the tickets up for them).

But who am I to say, eh? I was not the one who held the event...

At this point, let's take a slight detour in this essay while our minds are still fresh on the whole "Go Green" thing. As some of you may noticed, this "Go Green" slogan has been the fad these days, especially with corporations. I had a discussion with a good friend (Mike, in case you're wondering, yes I'm talking bout you) late yesterday night regarding the matter. This is basically what he said to me: On the surface, you might be thinking: why the change of heart? Big Corps never give a damn about Mother Earth before. So why now? You must know that "Go Green" is an alias for an old Big Corp holy words: cost cutting. You would probably be asking again, why now? I could only suspect that scientists (and a whole lot of other people who bother with statistics) have come up with enough statistical evidence showing that "Going Green" is beneficial to cutting cost, thus rasing the bottomline. People who were inclined to think that such gesture was due to altruism would probably be disappointed. But let's face it, given the current situation of Mother Earth, anything that environmentalists could get their squeeky clean hands on to be used as a weapon to fight for the sake of our planet are welcomed. Even if these are not of purely altruistic manner. But it would be silly if "Go Green" becomes a metric in Big Corps KPI.

(for those of you not in the know out there, KPI stands for key performance index... before you ask further what it really is, it all boils down to whether or not you get your salary raise/bonus at the end of the year... directly or indirectly...

Yeah, it's a load of BS alright, both KPI and my explanation of it).

End of detour.

Now, back to Java Jazz '09, the event (not the pain-in-the-@$$ ticketing process, or the lack of it). I watched with dread as I queued up in one of the long lines of miserable attendees on the first day of the event. No, this time it was not about how ridiculously long the queue was (I had given up hope on a quick, clean and efficient queueing process here in Jakarta long even before the ticket pick up event). This time, it was about the content of the event itself. I was (sigh) expecting that at least they put up accoustically-sound, enclosed spaces for the performers. I mean, it's jazz mon! I would imagine that I wanna get personal when listening to it. Instead, they put 'em up on stages in one big room, sharing the same airspace, duking it out on who's louder (between performers and, sadly, with attendees as well). It was like watching museum exhibits where people move about freely, making unnecessary noises that drowns the music, while the performers were put on displays like some antiques from God-knows-where. It was not Java Jazz, mon, it was chaos. Or perhaps this is what Java Jazz is all about, which means perhaps that this is not my crowd, mon.

At least Jason Mraz did not disappoint (eventhough the guy had to put up with some cultural differences when it comes to live performances).

To be fair, I did not come to the second and third day of the event. It was probably better by then. But the first day did not show any promises, so why bother anyways? No more Java Jazz for me in the coming years, methinks. At least, not until I see them boarding passes.

Pinoys and Coins

I just don't get it, really. The cashiers at most of the convenience/department stores and restaurants here in the Philippines are obsessed with giving coins for change, even when I know for sure that they have bigger denominations (paper-based ones, of course) inside their cashier machines. I might be wrong here, and they might have some purpose in giving coins, but really why would you want to give out your smaller denominations if you have a bigger one that would suffice? Don't cashiers want to keep their smaller denominations for those many cases where they need them? That's how I see it and once again, I might be missing out on some purpose, but getting lots of coins for change is starting to really get on my nerves.

I have my own reason as to why I don't like this. Coins can really damage wallets, and too much coins can make that happen a lot faster. This, along with my reasoning above, adds to my growing irritation. Top that off with the fact that I tried to ask nicely for a bigger denomination and the cashier gave a curt reply that no, they don't have bigger denominations (which is bull-fucking-shit), really got me going. So, instead of getting 20 Pesos bill I got four 5-peso coins. Crap.

Okay, rewind that a bit.

I was buying a nice can of Nescafe coffee worth 32 pesos. I have a 50-peso bill in my wallet. Knowing that if I don't do anything bout it I'll be getting (if I'm lucky) a change of one 10-peso coin, one 5-peso coin, and three 1-peso coins (if not lucky, maybe three 5-peso coins and three 1-peso coins, and believe me it can go as bad as receiving eighteen 1-peso coins). The prospect of my wallet having to nurse 5 more coins worth of change inside its already bulging space is frightening, and since I don't have two 1-peso coins and only have some 5-peso coins, I decided to give the cashier one 50-peso bill and one 5-peso coin, so that I would be getting a change of one 20-peso bill and three 1-peso coins. Better than 5 coins, right? And then it happened. Fucking dumb-ass guy.

And, c'mon, cashiers have a better chance in exchanging all those coins. I mean, don't people with businesses like these have a bigger chance than an average Joe like me in going to the banks and exchanging all those stoopid coins for bigger denoms? Don't they do that on a daily basis? Don't they have a central bank where they regulate this shit? Or is it because they want to promote charity so that the average Joe like me have small change to give to beggars? I'm trying to look at the bright side here...but the brighter side still looks dim to me...

When you really think about it, it's no biggie, really, but still it gets on my nerves. I just see no point in giving out smaller denominations while bigger ones still suffice (AND available). Like I said, if I'm a cashier (which I am not, and that's why I might have missed out on some explanation as to why they give out coins/smaller denominations first), I would try using my bigger denominations if I can and hold on to the smaller ones for cases where they are truly needed. I love my wallet (and no, it's not LV or any of those stoopid expensive brands) and I would dearly love to see it lasts for a long time by not taking in too much coins.

Maybe it's this night shift that gets me pretty cranky about small, inconsequential stuff. Threw the coins inside one of the pockets in my bag instead. I'd probably forgot about them later on. These coins would happily build a nest inside my dark, dingy bag and start proliferating like cockroaches in dark, dingy places.

And I can't believe this rant post is actually longer than some of my movie reviews...

I definitely need more sleep.